Monday, December 17, 2012

Enviros worry about Arizona's control of wolves

The Associated Press

Posted:
12/16/2012 1

ALBUQUERQUE,
N.M.—Environmentalists pushing for the release of more Mexican gray
wolves in Arizona and New Mexico are worried federal regulators are
allowing Arizona to control the process and severely limit releases.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made it clear it wants state
wildlife agencies to take the lead, said Sandy Bahr, the Phoenix-based
director of the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon chapter. Bahr tells the
Albuquerque Journal ( http://bit.ly/SzuFne) for a story in Sunday's editions that has led to no releases at all in the past four years.

Arizona
is now proposing to release between one and three captive wolves next
year to replace three lobos illegally shot between November 2011 and
July 2012 in Arizona. Only wolves killed in Arizona since the start of
2011 would be eligible for replacement. At least 12 wolves were killed
illegally in New Mexico from the start of 2009 through 2011.

The
proposal follows an Arizona Game and Fish Commission policy that says
the agency will only support replacing wolves killed illegally or that
have died from "natural events," such as vehicle collisions or lightning
strikes.

The Arizona commission delegated to its director
authority to decide whether to replace a wolf killed illegally, but it
retained the authority when it comes to wolves killed by natural causes.
Asked whether the Arizona commission or its Game and Fish Department have the final say on whether

wolves
are released into the recovery zone in that state, a Fish and Wildlife
Service spokesman issued a statement saying the federal government is
responsible under the Endangered Species Act for recovering the wild
wolf population.

The statement also said the federal agency and
state work as "partners" in wolf recovery under a memorandum of
understanding and that state partners "have no decision-making authority
over" the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
But Peter Ossorio,
a Las Cruces-based advocate of wolf recovery, said he was skeptical of
the Service's stated position. Ossorio said Arizona's proposal amounts
to a "veto" over new releases. He noted that in the spring of 2010,
Fish and Wildlife had readied a wolf pack for release. But it was
delayed because "this proposed release has not yet been formally
approved by AGFD (Arizona Game and Fish Department)," according to the
program's monthly notes published online.

The release never
occurred, and the wolves have since been moved to a zoo. No wolf
releases have occurred since late 2008, and the Service provided no
information about any other releases it is considering for 2013.

Under
existing rules, captive-bred wolves can be released only to a primary
recovery zone in Arizona. That means the "secondary" recovery zone in
New Mexico, including the Gila National Forest, is available only for
the relocation of previously captured wolves.

Bahr said the
Arizona commission's policy on new releases amounts to advocating "no
net increase" in the number of wolves in the state.
Arizona
Game Commission Chairman Norman Freeman disagreed with that
characterization, saying that a cautious approach to releases is in the
best interests of the lobos.

"As much as the commission wants
to see the wolves recovered, just releasing them willy-nilly is not a
good thing," Freeman said. Later, he added, "Releasing wolves with a
plan that all the stakeholders have not bought into or come to consensus
on is bad for the wolves."

The Mexican gray wolf was added
to the federal endangered species list in 1976 after it was nearly wiped
out by government trapping and poisoning designed to help cattle
ranchers. According to a Center for Biological Diversity history, the
last five survivors were captured between 1977 and 1980 bred in
captivity.

The first wolves under a recovery effort for the
Southwest were released in 1998 with an expected population of 100 in
Arizona and New Mexico by 2006. Instead there's about 60.
Environmentalists say the predators are critical to a diverse ecosystem.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone